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10 Questions with ... Jack Hammer & Andre Kane
March 28, 2017
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Website: www.theelectricradioshow.com.
Facebook: Facebook.com/studioers
Twitter: www.twitter.com/studioers
Instagram: www.instagram.com/theelectricradioshow .
ERS Mobile App: onelink.to/electricradio
ERS-TV: www.youtube.com/jackandandretv
Podcast: www.theelectricradioshow.libsyn.com1) Before we talk about your radio show, please give us your background in radio?
JH: I started in the industry as a board op for an affiliate AM station in upstate New York for the Unistar Radio Network. I was young and saw radio as a promising career. I never set out to be in radio. We kind of found each other and it’s been my career ever since. I applied myself to most areas of radio, not just on the air. I learned audio production (the old-fashioned way … I cut tape!), promotions, creative writing and even engineering. But my true love is being on the air. You can’t paint yourself into a corner by being so hyper-focused on just one thing that you miss out on other opportunities that are in front of you. Don’t get me wrong, have a main goal. But also be open to other opportunities. You might just unearth a hidden talent! I have used (and still use to this day) everything that I’ve learned over my years in radio.
AK: I started working in radio when I was 18 at a 50,000-watt station, 60 miles outside of Manhattan. My title was the morning show producer. It’s where I met Jack Hammer. I also worked in Creative Services, and I was a Promotions Director & Digital Media Director at a different company, I learned as much as I could coming up in radio, I was a jock for a while, but my main focus was mornings, I also learned how to make one hell of a cup of coffee, ha ha. Jack and I then went on to work a handful of other stations together as The Electric Radio Show.
2) What radio stations and personalities did you listen to when you were growing up?
JH: Now you’re asking me to ‘date’ myself! Okay, here goes … I’m a child of the ‘60s. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. So, of course, I listened to the big NYC stations of the time. The two major players in the ‘60s were WABC and WMCA. I also listened to WINS and WOR. I also remember the Spring of 1974 when WXLO in New York City became 99X. Wow! What? It was HOT! It was DIFFERENT! It wasn’t your parents’ radio station. But still, I had NO idea that I, one day, would be the guy on the other side of the microphone. Jocks that I remember most growing up? Cousin Bruce Morrow, Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, Joe McCoy, Johnny Donovan, Imus and, of course, Howard Stern. When Howard hit the air on WNBC in New York, I was hooked. I never missed his show. At the time, I was a kid who drove deliveries for a living. You can bet your bottom dollar that when it was time for Howard Stern, it was on. STILL, I had no idea that I would ever be in radio. Until 1990, that’s a year when my life would change forever. It was surreal. I was now doing (on a very rudimentary level) what all the guys I just mentioned are doing for a living ... I was in Radio!
AK: I didn’t listen to a lot of radio growing up, believe it or not, I was a guitar player in a few bands so I always listened to tapes in my car. I really started listening to radio when I got into the business, I listened to everything from the old WNEW in NY when it was a talk format, O&A and Tom Leykis to K-Rock, Z100 and WPLJ, and Howard Stern, I got addicted to radio very quickly back when I first started and I had a lot to learn.
3) Can you give us the specifics of how The Electric Radio show came together?
AK: Jack and I met in 2001 while working for a station in N.Y. We have been working together since then in radio as a team; we worked in Production together for close to six years handling four FMs and two AMs while both of us worked on the morning show. We were then hired to do the morning show on a different station in N.Y. That’s when we first called ourselves The Electric Morning Show with Jack Hammer and Andre Kane; that was in 2008, Jack came up with the title. In 2014, we changed the name of the show to The Electric Radio Show when we moved the show to the PA radio station.
4) When did you guys decide to syndicate the show and how was that process?
AK: We actually always talked about it but never really knew how to do it, but it really came as a natural process for us. When we were hired on the PA station in 2014 we decided we were going to just start asking radio stations if they would like to air the show. I started e-mailing stations and eventually 37 of them said yes, (it wasn't quite as easy as I just made that sound, ha ha). The biggest ones are Class X Radio, 88.9 FM , 89.1 FM , 89.1 FM 92.1 FM , 95.5 FM, 105.5 FM (which airs us in Cincinnati and Kentucky and Sunny Radio), 93.3 FM in Sioux Falls and 97.1 FM in Sioux City, as well as many other FM and AM affiliates around the country and even around the world. We also put the show out on some of the larger Internet radio stations, you wouldn’t believe how many listeners we get on Internet radio. After distributing the show, putting it out on various stations, doing all the leg work, working so hard with marketing and everything from the ground up and doing this for years on our own, it has definitely prepared us for the future.
5) For those who haven’t heard The Electric Radio Show, give us some highlights of special features and music you feature on the show on a weekly basis?
JH: Well, for one thing, we write our own material. Yes, we actually write and produce content unique to our show. From our ‘Half in the Bag’ news guy Tom Brokejaw giving you humorous headlines to our “Prestidigitator” Batel, who stops by from time to time to ‘Shock and Amaze.’ We also like interacting with our listeners with segments such as the ‘Underground Spotlight,’ which highlights new musicians who might not normally get airplay, to interacting with listeners via their e-mails and social media. It goes on and on. I won’t bore you any longer. As far as music, because we’re on different formats, you might hear ERS with Rock music on one station and maybe Top 40 or Classic Hits on another. We can (and continue to) fit almost any format. That’s the beauty of it. You can listen to our show across some of our affiliates and get a different experience. Yes, the show content might be the same, but musically, totally different.
6) How is the music chosen on The Electric Radio Show?
JH: Simply enough, it’s ‘Hits’-based that leans Rock. However, I have put the occasional “Oh, Wow!” songs in there to spice things up a bit. Though it’s mostly ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s hits for the produced version of our show that some of our affiliates carry. But again, it’s how, when and where you’re listening to the show. The music will change depending on the affiliate.
7) I understand that podcasts of past shows are available through your own mobile app?
AK: Yea absolutely, in today’s world one of the most important things we feel you can do is offer your audience on-demand listening, and the ability to take your show along with them to the gym, in the car, at the beach or in the bathroom, ha ha. Podcasting is huge and has lots of revenue potential, so to get our past episodes you can download our mobile app by heading to www.theelectricradioshow.com and clicking on the mobile app button. Once you have us on your Android, iPhone or iPad, you can then easily get the show and access our social media. You can even view our website on our mobile app. We're also on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, The iHeartRadio app … we are just about everywhere. Search The Electric Radio Show in your App store and also search it on Google.
8) How does the Show use social media to interact with its listeners?
AK: Social media today is just as important as being on the air; we feel being connected to our audience is extremely important, so we live-stream from our appearances and events all over. Jack does lots of conventions and he live-streams from them. We also do a weekly video promo right on Facebook; we feel video goes hand in hand with radio nowadays. We use YouTube as well; we call our YouTube channel ERS-TV, put videos up on it and even release our shows on it. We tweet out our past episodes and we really connect with our audience in different ways. The old rules still apply, and we connect with them on the air, but connecting with them on social mMedia and on their mobile devices is just as important. We have a very popular blog as well, we blog news stories, current events and even our episodes. We are on Facebook at Facebook.com/studioers and Twitter @studioers stop in and say hi. It’s also important for everything to connect. For example our website is an extension of our social media and vice versa. It all connects to each other and all flows together which is super important, from our on air product right down to social media, e-mail blasts, to our push notifications on the app. Our brand is right on point and has been a direct reflection of our success. We're very excited to see The Electric Radio Show grow so much in the industry; we have certainly poured our hearts and soul into it.
9) What is the #1 reason that Rock programmers should run The Electric Radio Show on their station?
JH: For the same reason that any programmer should want our show -- it kicks ass! The absolute passion for the show that we have, the chemistry of everyone involved, the content, the flow, and the fun. I have yet to hear from any of our PDs that they DON’T like our show. We’re on so many stations because they DO like the show. I’m sorry. Did I answer your question?
10) Finally, what would you like to accomplish with the show in the next three to five years?
JH: To keep adding to this monster machine that is The Electric Radio Show by adding more markets in more cities, in more countries. The love that we get from outside The U.S. still blows me away. I want to reach Small Town, USA. I want to reach Major Metropolis, USA. I want to bring fun and laughter to every single country on the planet and, just for fun, when they’re not doing anything on the International Space Station, I want them listening to us, too! The sky is the limit and we are only limited to what restrictions we put on ourselves.
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